


The Not-So-Holy Grail War

by thelittleraven



Category: Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms, Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic, Supernatural
Genre: Battle, F/M, Fallen Angel, Grail War, Wishes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-07-08 04:02:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15922469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelittleraven/pseuds/thelittleraven
Summary: A Fallen Angel,A Dark Magi,8 Servants and Masters,One Holy Grail.Valerie is a fallen angel who becomes bored with the life of an angel. She wants adventure. To achieve this, she one day goes on an adventure to Egypt in the 15th century with her younger brother, Castiel. But then.. a dark Magi appears and tells her about a war that could give her what she's always wanted. A sense of belonging.Is this a romance? Betrayal? Who knows. But there's a Holy War going on, and what are rules if you can't break them?





	1. || Chapter One ||

It can be said that Heaven is a great place, right? Sure, if you don't mind constant agitation and countless jobs. There’re always things to be done but no real point in doing any of them. That can be said of anything, though, but doing something worth something is better than doing nothing for nothing. That's how I met Castiel.

 

Angels are always bound together and share the same goals. Some become skewed and turn to Lucifer's side and others fit to the 'good side' and some others fix somewhere in the middle. Castiel's side was just that, in the middle. For his living, he worked with humans instead of on behalf of them. It was something I didn't quite understand until I grew bored of just being an angel and wanted to see what exactly everyone was always whispering in scorn about. How could an angel work with humans? Or even more, lose their angel powers for them? If we fast track this, or even rewind this depending on how you look at it, similar things occur to me. Though for me it doesn't even involve losing my power for humans but because of them does that happen. This timeline neither fits as a before or an after, but a mix of the two. One came before the other, but the effects occur because of the past that ends up being a future.

For now, we'll stick to our current timeline, the learning of humans is difficult and simple at the same time to understand. Many have simple wants, simple needs and yet are always wanting more of whatever that need or want is. It changes from objects to people, personal goals or even to things like ideas. Expansion of such things is ever important and always changing. The majority of angels find humans about as interesting as ants. They occasionally cause problems but are generally small and unimportant and, if not messed with too much, generally don't cause annoyance. And then there are people like Castiel, whom try and persistently learn about their simple ways of life. The general education of an angel is usually limited on human information, though I've learned a great deal through radio and just generally know things about anything there is to know about anything at all. So learning more about human life was simple enough. I particularly found Egypt to be the most interesting, or any place where people created structures for some purpose they deemed larger than themselves. Places like Egypt were particularly interesting to me just for how they cared for things. Buildings were constructed with both detail and symmetry, each block cut a certain measurement and then placed in an arrangement that made the entire structure sound, but by creating internal structures within it, sections could just collapse while the outside main structure would never alter. It was an odd cycle, civilizations constant shift from one thing to the next, constant change of beliefs and feelings. The only thing that didn't change was structures, monuments, things that by some magic, withstood time and had more created all around the planet. The types of items they held, too, were interesting. Details put in, materials, the work and dedication needed to create such things was vast. That is why I began my own small collection of such things, first using books as well as collecting them and then sending Castiel information about things of interest. Not only did this further my liking for the culture, but my eventual visitation of it as well. At first I stayed more hands off, preferring to figure out how exactly everything from their world worked. I could care less how things worked in mine, it was bland in comparison and therefore was of no interest. I found it most interesting especially, of those that viewed it as the grandest of places when it indeed was not. It was confusing to me, but I took it as being something that only they truly understood to be true because they'd never been. Much as how I, having never been to theirs found it interesting as well.

It seemed to me that Castiel, however, had more than just an interest in humans but a want to be like them. He'd said once that he'd wanted to see what their world was really like from their eyes and learn to think the way that they did, to be able to solve our problems better, perhaps, with their techniques. It seemed somewhat insane, and everyone had objected. Due to this, all angels thereon had a dislike for him, stating that he'd betrayed Heaven and his right to be an angel. Due to his descent into human life, he did gain years of experience ranging from their ways of fighting, views about Heaven, Hell, and everything else, to how they occupied their time such as the writing of books. Books have been a part of angel history, too but at least not in the same extent of that of humans. We have one scribe, they have millions.

Years past before we ever heard from him again, and at some point, the boredom got too much so guess who decided to take a trip themselves? That would be me. And the first stop? Egypt. Why? Because there were so many cool things I wanted to collect. Yes, collection of objects seems like an odd reason, but it was a learned habit. Humans seemed to mainly enjoy one type of activity, the acquisition of items. To me, that seemed great because in Heaven, nothing you own belongs to you. You're not allowed to own anything. You're given items but in no way are they yours. Therefore, collecting items became my most favorite activity. Sadly, Castiel had never been anywhere except for the United States, and knew about Egypt only through some brochure that he found in some motel. This made my knowledge of the place limited and relying on humans wasn't something I wanted to do just yet.


	2. || Chapter Two ||

Due to my desire to see the world, I decided to try out time traveling. Not all angels can do this, and I've been around long enough to figure out how. I'm a lot older than I look. Plus, as I figure it, being around the people in their own time would be more beneficial to me than rummaging through their things. There's more personality that way. Therefore, going back in time seemed like the best route.

The 15th century seemed like a good enough era. Cas didn't think so, but came with me anyway. I was the smart one, he was the helpful younger brother.  
"I'm pretty sure this won't work," he said as soon as we got there, motioning to first his attire, and then mine.

I glanced over at him. "Cloaks work for all timeframes... I don't know why you thought your normal clothing would be fine. It isn't fashionable in your current time frame or any for that matter."

"Fine, then I need new clothes." He decided.

"We don't have money for that." I held out my hand and another cloak appeared. "Put that on."

Castiel took the cloak from me and put it on over his trench coat, flipping the hood up. "I feel like we're some sort of angel mafia."  
I almost laugh at that. "We're not, and hopefully don't need to be."

"Yeah... and my people skills are a little 'rusty'."

"I have none so, you're far better off than me."

Castiel nods. "True. So, what are we going to do first?"

"I figured find the ruler, get them to show us around?"

"Uh..." Castiel pulls a brochure out of his jacket pocket and begins flipping through it. "Hatsheepsoot?"  
"Hat-shep-sut, fool."

"Oh... yes, she is the current pharaoh."

We were walking through a plaza full of people, none seemed to care that we were there. A few did look our way a couple of times, but not enough to say they were suspicious of anything.

Since neither of us could read a map worth a damn, we mostly just used the locals to figure out where to go. It didn't take us too long to find ourselves right outside of her palace, or more so her son's palace. It was only hers by default and due to the age of her son.  
It didn't take but a few minutes before guards showed up and since I had no idea how invitations to a pharaoh's palace worked, we were both dragged off to what was basically a holding cell.

"Great job guys. Very efficient." I told the guards as they walked off, two staying to guard the door just outside where we were. The both glared at me and said nothing.

"Well, now what?" Cas asked.

"Now we wait, I suppose."

It was about an hour before she came. Castiel paced the entire time, meanwhile I was content, counting out the money that I'd 'borrowed' from the guards who'd brought us in.

The woman who entered had long dark black-blue hair adorned with gold and she wore so many bracelets it was amazing that they made no sound as she moved.  
"What purpose do you have coming to my palace?" Hatshepsut asked, eyeing Castiel rather than me.

I waved slightly to get her attention. "Hi, yeah, we kinda got lost and figured visiting you would be a good idea."

"And why would that be, girl?"

I glanced over at Cas and nodded. We then both teleported to outside the holding cell. "We can be of help to you," I said.  
Hatshepsut seemed slightly amazed, but the annoyance was still here. She turned and walked out. "Come, follow me."  
We followed her up a hill to where her palace sat, surrounded by large statues and obelisks.

"Nice place," Cas said, looking around. "Very... open."

Hatshepsut led us inside, up more stairs until eventually we came to what I supposed was where she spent the most of her time. "What is the real reason you two are here?" she asked, eying us. You're not from here." She yanks off Cas' cloak. "You look like a fool."  
He takes it back from her and I laugh. "I told you that you dress funny."  
"You do too, child." 

I glare at her, but she doesn't take mine, just simply stares for a few seconds before sitting down on an ottoman. "I can tell you're not human, if that's what you're wondering," she said before adding, "so please tell me, what are you here for."

One of her servants, Senenmut entered and gave her a drink before leaving again.

"Just came to collect items." I told her. "That's all."

"Boring reason. But whatever, you're free to do as you'd like. Just don't scare my people..." she glanced over again. "I should ask what you are."  
"It won't match you're thinking," Cas told her.

Hatshepsut shrugged. "Tell me anyway. All pharaohs being divine do not hide from others."  
I sighed. "Fine." 

Snapping, Castiel's actual from appeared, dark shadowy wings casting themselves on the wall behind him and a bright light around him before dimming away. "Like Isis," Hatshepsut said, then seemed to find something annoying with the name and rolled her eyes. She then got up and strode across the room, pushed Castiel aside and looked at me.

"What?" I asked her, she was kind of freaking me out being so close.

"Here," a small dagger appears in her hand and she gives it to me. "Keep it. If you require assistance wherever you come from, use it to summon my spirit."  
"Hm... okay." I took it and she backed away.

"You're both free to leave now. Do whatever you'd like." Hatshepsut waved her hand.

"Oh, so you're not gonna help out.. Okay."

"I never said I would."

And with that we left, back to the plaza area.

The plaza seemed like it would be a crowded and bustling place like the rest of the city, but it wasn't. It had a quiet yet ominous aura to it, one that Castiel and I could sense as soon as we got near it.

"What is that?" Castiel asked, dagger in hand.

"Dunno," I looked around then stopped. In front of us was a dark aura, appearing in the form of small swirling black butterflies. All swarming in a vortex. Within them, a tall man began to appear.

"I think that's a Magi." I said.

"A what? Aren't those supposed to be gone?" Cas asked, his eyes going from me to the figure and back.

The man shrugged. "I'm here, so that's a no."

He was tall with pitch black hair that was so long that it almost touched the ground, bunched up in sections. His dark red eyes looked at mine then winked, as if there was some sort of secret that we knew. Which of course I didn't. Thus his action annoyed me greatly, amusing him in the process.  
"What's the matter?" he asked. "I know you didn't just come to Egypt to say hello to the pharaoh." Castiel nodded. "Yeah, we did." 

"Then you were misinformed," the man said, then continued. "Which means you don't know about the war that's going on in an alternate dimension, do you?" "The Holy Grail War? Yeah, I know of it." I replied. I knew of it because there were countless books on it, all referencing bloodshed and loss, all for one goal - a wish granting golden grail.

"Good, because I have a feeling you'll end up part of it soon enough. I know you've traveled to here from the future. I'm an oracle."

"I see."

Next thing I know he was beside me. "You don't seem interested. Hm.. how about this. To make things more interesting, we battle. If you win, I'll tell you more about the war, or whatever it is you're here for." "And if you win?" I wasn't sure I wanted to know the answer to this. 

The man grinned and took up one of my hands, which for some reason I didn't automatically pull away. "A date, and information I might need." He lets go of my hand then, sidestepping a few feet away. As if he knew I might slap him.

I wasn't even going to do that, but at least he assumed it. "Fine." I say finally, turning to Castiel for a second. "You can stay over there," I point to the nearby steps of a shop. "I'll make a barrier for this area, so nothing gets ruined."

With a barrier up and Castiel safe, the battle could commence.

"Oh, and before we start, I'm Judar."

"Valerie." I say, having now only a short time to choose which Djin I might use for this battle. I don't know what Judar's attacks are yet, other than that he has a massive magic level. Cala would be good speed wise, Razashan provides offense with my scythe, and Matangi with dimension warping abilities. Cala was only if necessary, so the only options I really had were Razashan or Matangi.

I summon Razashan through my skull ring, my scythe appearing in my hands. It erupts with Razashan's power, the metal warping and changing. Gemstones emerge and it's two long horns sprout from the top, a gemstone suspended in between them. The hilt of the scythe elongates and curves. Multiple blades appear on the scythe, much like the teeth of a shark. A dark cloak then appears, along with a mask that covers most of my face. The right eye of the mask emits blue flames, as does the scythe itself. Silver jewelry appears on my arms, also with this blue flame energy.

"Okay then," Judar takes out his wand, a small golden one with a red gemstone on top. He waves it and a large iceberg appears, heading towards me.  
This is easy, I say to Castiel. I don't move as the ice is barreling towards me, merely swing my scythe at it, the ice slicing in two and melting upon contact.  
"You're gonna have to do better than that," I say to Judar.

"I suppose so" He replies, then summoning lighting magic, his Ramz Al-Salos, which is a combination of black Rukh and lighting that crackled through the air--- Castiel, outside the barrier, saw everything happening at light speed, lighting, followed by gravity magic, then back to ice and finally an explosion of energy. Neither of us were winning. 

"How about we just call this done?" I ask, there's fire everywhere now and I've resorted to only being able to read energy waves, which right now is just a blur of colors. "Oh, so you're admitting I win?" Judar asked. Somehow, he's behind me now. The hell did he get there? 

I close my eyes and breath, I have spacial magic around me to stop everything as best I can. It's hard to stop time for both me and keep the barrier up at the same time. My eyesight is going blurry.

"Here, let me fix it." Judar waves his wand and the time slowly begins reversing and I let go of the barrier around me, leaving up the one around the area until everything reverts enough to where nothing is destroyed. I then release that barrier as well, still feeling dizzy.

Judar catches me before Castiel can get there, smirking as he picked me up. "I've got her," he tells Cas, who stopped running and sighs.

"Fine." Cas then gets a phone call. He looks from me, passed out asleep, to Judar. He doesn't trust leaving me with him but does at the same time, having about the same feeling about him as I did. "Can I take this?"

Judar shrugs. "Sure, as long as I can take this." He then teleports away.


	3. || Chapter Three ||

In my dreams, there's always a mission or something I need to solve. This delirious dream of mine is the same as those, though everything is twisted and warped. One moment there's ground and the next it's floating away into the sky.

Now there's lights, torches along the walls that float up from their holders and then light the ground ablaze. Further on the path, which is made of inlaid golden bricks, is a large stage. Something glows on it, but it's too bright to see.

And then all light fades away.

 

<><><> 

 

I wake up to find myself on a small bed beside an ocean. My head is killing me and vision is still wonky. I pull the covers up more and try to fall back asleep. I do, for about ten minutes until a owl screeches as it flies by. I sit up and unknowingly smack Judar in the head and knock myself back out.

When I next wake up, Judar is sitting beside the bed seeming to be asleep now. It's early morning and while I still feel tired, I get up. It's a slow process, but I get untangled from the blankets, picking the top most one up and wrapping it around myself, even if... wait, where the hell are we?

I look around, the ocean is to my right and palm trees are scattered through the area. We're in a small fishing shack that only has a small lantern overhead for light. It's flame flickering with a breeze that blows through the broken windows. When did we get to an island? I had no idea, being out cold and all that. But I could smell salt water and sand littered the wooden floors. I walk around the bed and stop in front of Judar. His hair is undone out of its ties but I can still see that his forehead is red from where I'd accidentally hit him.

Feeling bad about that, I disappear and show back up with a small bag of ice wrapped in a towel. (Which, btw, I had to go all the way back to my timeline to get). I sit back down on the bed, close to where his and place it on his forehead. Startled by how cold it is, he wakes up and takes it from me.

"There's better ways to have woke me," he says.

"Yeah, I coulda just threw it at you." I reply, then change my tone. "Sorry about it."

"I probably needed it." He closes his eyes with it on for a while before speaking again. "You gonna ask where we are?"

"Bahamas?" I joked, I had already left and came back, realizing we're still in Egypt, just closer to the ocean side of it.

Judar smirks and shakes his head. "Just figured you'd be out for a while and didn't wants Feathers to freak out."

"I'm telling him you called him that."

"Go right ahead. Though I don't know if he's still in Egypt anymore..."

He looks at me expectantly, to offer my name. I don't.

"Why would he not be?" I ask, putting my feet under the other covers more, the wind picking up a little more speed makes the air seem cooler.

"He'd gotten a call from someone, asked if he could take it."

Of course, he did. Having a separate family, a human one, meant he was gone a lot to help them out. He'd currently be in the 2000's in an underground bunker in Kansas.

"So, you just took me, then."

Judar grins and hands me the packet. "You're welcome."

I take it from him. "You couldn't have if I didn't want you to, you know."

"Sure. But I'd say I won our battle."

Cala was why, I knew it. Demonic Djin are powerful and bad creatures, using them was never recommended and even Razashan warned me not to use neither Cala or Matangi, and to keep them far away from his vessel to not corrupt him as well. I tell Judar about this and he nods.

"I should know." a black Rukh appears, landing on his hand. About twenty more appear too, though some seem attracted to me, becoming grey and then dissolve with combustion. I watch as the little fireworks show goes on and sigh. Judar turns his head and notices them too.

I shrug and take off my Djinn's, Cala and Matangi's, vessel rings setting them aside to see if it does any different. Now they'll land on my hand and stay grey for a longer duration before exploding.

I decide to put Cala and Matangi in spatial storage and automatically feel tired again.

"Go back to sleep," Judar says, putting his hair back up. He then waves his wand and the time changes back to night, gravity magic moving the sun back a couple of hours.

Fall back asleep I do, this time without nightmares. Or so I think. I wake up unable to remember much of anything, everything is fuzzy.

At some point, I hear a voice explaining in broken sentences what's happened, I'd broken a rule from Heaven. Do not fight the Magi. Well sorry, it's not like it was in the handbook. I would roll my eyes in my dream if I could. A flash of light happens, making me shield my eyes. As it dissipates, I lower my hand and see a lady all dressed in a white pantsuit. Matilda. Oh God, I hate her, you know? I really do. She stares at me with her beady eyes and then gives me the 'you know what you did, hun' look and snaps her fingers at impossible speed. "You've been banished, miss D'Angelo. Like your brother, you are no longer allowed to return to Heaven. Try to come back, you will be pursued until dead."

Like I didn't see that one coming. Heaven and it's stupid rules. I never got to do anything I wanted to do. I was sick of it, my head hurt, and Matilda flashing away didn't help either. The light didn't dissipate either, just kept getting brighter like some sort of light beam to zap me out of existence.

I woke up with the same headache, metaphorically and mentally. Judar is beside me now, passed out asleep. I can vaguely remember him falling asleep there, partially. It'd been when I'd started screaming in my sleep, apparently when I was getting banished in my mind, Rukh were exploding all over the place in the shack and dark aura was everywhere. So basically, the shack was an angry snow globe. And it was all from me. Judar had woken up due to it and could only help so much with taking the Rukh away since one of a Magi's abilities is to absorb it. "You're not supposed to be eviler than me," he'd said at one point, not as if he hated the idea.

<><><> 

I was already sick of the ocean when I woke up, remembering in flashes that past versions of me also hated it. I've been in the shack so long I'd might as well have lived by it forever.

The Holy Grail War. Yes, that was why I was here now. I needed to find the next one. It was the only other option that I had. There was nothing else for me to do in Egypt. And getting my stuff out of Heaven would take a lot of time. But I did have a wish, a wish I'd longed to have granted for eons.

Before I can say anything, Judar shakes his head. "You're not."

I glare at him. "Why not?"


	4. || Chapter Four ||

The air is warm and dry, though there's still sand everywhere. Judar has taken me into one of the towns, to look for some people he needed to speak to. "I think they need a better landscaper..." I say, mostly joking but also just plain tired of sand; I've seen too much of it.

Judar pats me on the head, which I move away from. I don't need to be chided. We walk in silence the rest of the way, to a plaza much like the one in Hatshepsut's empire.

The people turned out to be a young Magi named Aladdin and his two friends, which I gave Judar a lot of eye rolling for.

"What is this, Ash and friends?" I go on a mini-rant and right as I'm starting to make even worse jokes, Judar tells me to be quiet by clamping a hand over my mouth. I feel like he's wasting my time.

Out in the plaza, the group of three are walking towards a large palace belonging to the Parthevian empire.

"Why are they going there?" I whisper.

Judar shrugs, my guess is as good as his. "Let's find out."

"Sure, but how?" I ask him, we're in a side alley, and the main entrance is right in the middle of the plaza. I examine the windows of the place, knowing there's an easy and quick way if it gets planned out enough.

We watch the three friends enter the palace, the door shutting tight behind them. Armed guards are standing outside, clad in golden armour.

Judar comes up behind me and picks me up again, just like when he'd brought me to this side of Egypt to begin with.

"Why do you keep doing this." I act annoyed with it even though for some odd reason, I don't mind it.

"I do whatever I want, plus, it bothers you." With that, he teleports us to inside of the palace.

Inside, we're at the highest balcony. Down below is the group of friends, traversing the foyer headed towards the upstairs area where the king awaits. The guards outside the door eye them as they approach.

While I'm watching them, Judar is busy examining me.

"What?" I finally ask him when I notice.

"You look like a tourist. Change."

For a split second I'm shocked he said that, but then snap my fingers and my clothes alter into something different, a long red and black yukata type robe.

"Good enough," He then hops up onto the banister and then steps down onto the air. "Come on. We need to keep up with them."

We're out in the open now, right above the group who's now arguing with the guards to let them in. Since Judar is holding my hand, I think it's fine to go a few steps towards where they are, only realizing as I'm falling that it was a stupid idea and I shouldn't have. Luckily, Judar catches me before I get near them and pulls me away, right into his lap. He then calls me an idiot and begins braiding my hair.

I wait until he's done to start to say something, when he stops me and takes of one set of his bracelets. He tells me to make a copy if it, which I do, and he removes one of the rings and fashions it into a hair pin, a red gem tucked between the metal. He puts the pin in my hair and the bracelets on my right wrist.

"You done yet, fashionista?" I ask him. I really need to learn to shut up, it seems, because at that moment he lets me go and I'm now right back where I was - falling.

I fall awkwardly, somehow through the door to the king’s throne room as it opens and the group walks through. I barrel over Aladdin in the process. Very graceful. Aladdn's two friends shirk out of the way just in time.

"Aladdin!" The yellow haired boy, Alibaba, yells, running over to where we are. Aladdin is thrown against the next flight of steps that lead up to the final level that leads to a main reception room. Thankfully we didn't end up there, and the king isn't around, otherwise we'd have a lot of explaining to do. I assess any damage. Overall, I'm alright, though somehow even after getting knocked over Aladdin still managed to land on my chest, which I beat him off of.

Morgiana eyes me. "Who are you?" she asks. She's a Fanalis and I can tell she's confused. The aura around me hasn't exactly been stable lately. It appears she hasn't noticed Judar yet, his aura is purely dark whereas mine is still such a mixture of the two I'm more neutral than anything, especially the angel side of me now.

"Valerie," I tell them.

"I like her." Aladdin is awake now, staring. "Preeetty."

"You touch me again I'll break your hands." I tell him, which doesn't seem to faze him any, just makes him ignore me and move closer.

Still up above us, Judar uses wind magic to push him away before landing on the ground in front of me.

"Sorry about dropping you," he tells me, though he's smiling so I kick him.

While he's now occupied with his foot, the three kids are now readying themselves for a fight.

"Oi, stop it. We're not here for that." I sigh and block one of Alibaba's dagger attacks. "You keep fighting me you'll get to see my Servant." I tell them. I'm mostly lying, it's not like she'd come to a place like this anyway, let alone help me out.

Morgiana flies by me in a kick, smashing a nearby wall. "You have a Servant?" she asks, emerging from the rubble.

I nod, getting the odd sense that she's remembering something awful by the way she glares at me now, a little sterner than before.

"We were looking for a dungeon," Alibaba tells me. "We came here to see if the king could offer us a place to say before we enter it."

I nod and let them go, telling them to just forget that we were here. I know they'll comply due to removing their knowledge of us being there, from their minds. It's a simple task and I didn't want to do it, but also didn't want to be bothered by the whole empire possibly causing issues.

With them gone, I decide to try out summoning Hat, since I'd never tried it out before. To my surprise, she materializes out of her astral form. "Nice to see you, peasant."

Hatshepsut is wearing a royal cloak, blue in color with gold embroidery. Her ceremony dagger is attached to a waist belt and her hair is strung with golden beads.

"Who put you in that trash outfit?" she asks, eyeing me. Her dark kohl eyeliner makes her eyes striking to look at, almost hypnotic.

I tell her that the outfit is just illusion magic for while we're here, dispelling it but keeping the hair pin.

Judar lands beside me.

"Oh, Al-Tharman's errand boy, lovely." Hat glares at him too, rolling her eyes. "Why'd you have to find him of all people? You have plenty of others you could choose from. That Espada, the dark Mage..." she rambles on for a while.

Not one to share, Judar slips his hand into mine, putting himself a little more in front of me.

Hat steps closer to him, placing the point of her staff towards him. "You know I could break you like a twig." She lingers for a minute and then steps back, turns, and saunters away. She gets to the door leading to the inside of her own palace and waves for us to follow. We're in her noble phantasm now, which is a astral turned real, dungeon/tomb.

The inside is more brightly lit than before. The walls glitter with gold and silver. Her own servant people are milling about, and treasure of all kinds are being moved from room to room, some being sorted, and others being sent out for shipment. We pass by the staff, following Hat into a small hallway and down a flight of stairs into a darker hallway.

The air here seems stale, less life down here than there is upstairs. Judar stays close as we follow Hat down a few more sets of stairs that eventually lead to a large door. Waving her hand, the door begins raising, metal chains and cogs lifting it up and out of the way. Inside is an altar, covered in fresh blood. Under it older caking blood is piled up in layers.

"What kind of a party you got going on down here?" I ask Hat, who with a sideways glance tells me that I'm better of not knowing. She stops at another door.

"The Holy War has just begun, dear," Hat turns her head and two servants show up, handing me a book and something that looks like a blood stone.

With a slight nod, Hat bangs her staff on the ground twice. A flight of stairs appears, spiraling down into more darkness. Torches light themselves as we walk past.

Hat stops once more at a larger door this time, one trimmed in gold. "This is the door that leads to the Grail's chamber. This is what we're trying to keep safe within this palace. There's currently 7 Servants and Masters, not including us, who are trying to locate it, which is why we have to keep it safe. I couldn't ask of you to place me out in the war, so we will wait for the war to find us. It is what royalty does, is it not?"

I shrug because I literally have no clue, I had never even considered myself, being an angel, to have been anything near considered royal. "Why not." I say, finally.

Hat sighs. "I really did get a peasant as a Master," she shakes her head and then glares at me with her dark blue eyes. "Well?" She's eying me expectantly. "You going to help me out or not? I don't have all day to wait for an answer. You’re my Master, so you must"

I tell her yes, it wasn't like I had any other reason to be here. Out of all the options I could have took up with this war, this was a pretty good one, at least I thought so. If the war took most of its time out in the field, we'd be fine here. What could go wrong?

Back upstairs, Hat gave me a key and walked off. "Don't tell me I never did anything for you."

That was Hat's nice way of saying "Here's your damn room, don't ask for anything else from me."

Which honestly, I was surprised she's been as cordial as she had been about it, she might be my Servant but royalty she was to a T. She didn't have time to care about anything else, or anyone, unless it was herself. Which is when it dawned on me, that must be what's wrong with Judar, who'd been keeping me at a distance from Hat the entire time.

The room Hat gave me was modestly sized. Full of spiders, yes, and dust, totally. I sneezed for the first couple of minutes.

"Bless you," Judar had his eyes closed, sitting on the floor by the door. I was near a window trying to get the spiders to quit thinking I was a jungle gym and go outside. I tell Judar thank you, finally, and watch him for a bit. His eyes are closed when I'm looking at him, but the moment I quit I can tell he's looking at me.

"What?" I ask him.

He doesn't say anything.

"Can I ask you something?"

He doesn't say anything again and I just take it as a 'sure, ask whatever you want' type of silence.

"You'd said when we met that you were an oracle. Of what, exactly?"

"The Kou Empire," He stretches and puts his hands behind his head. "And Al-Thamen is a group within it that I lived with since I was kid. Taught me to control my powers. Their main goal is... To fix free will. Their philosophy is that the destiny of anyone is caused by someone else, and not that person's, that everything, because of that, is unfair. So, they live to change that ideal."

Judar summons black Rukh to his hand, which fly around him. "At they use a lot of these to do that," he tells me. "Which means war and anything negative is good for them, even make monsters out of the Rukh it creates. And they needed me to tell them what to do, what their futures would be."

"So... they basically want to just destroy everything."

Judar nods. "Wonderful, right?" He has his eyes closed still.

"Not at all." I shake my head and try to understand how a group like that could think so wrongly. They were just people after all, so it made sense in that way, a lot of them had odd ideas of what was good and bad. All of it was subject to seeming wrong or just plain crazy. This group fit into both categories. I myself, didn't believe in things like that. I thought of the world as a universal cause and reaction network. If something happened somewhere, or someone did something, it caused something else somewhere else. Like the saying, a butterfly flapping it wings causes a hurricane.

I told Judar about that, to which he didn't say anything at all. So, I gave up, turning my attention away from being confused, and to dealing with the problem at hand, the room. I used dimensional magic to fix the room up as best I could, fixing the bed so it was no longer on the floor and removed the room of dust.

Once that was all fixed, I picked up a blanket off of the bed and threw it at Judar before blowing the candle out. I figured he'd go find somewhere to sleep, or just stay there, if anything.

I didn't hear any noise until I was almost asleep, twenty minutes later. He was trying to be quiet, that sneaky bastard. The floorboards moved and then the blanket was set back over me followed by him laying down beside me. He took his time taking the hair pin out of my hair, which I'd completely forgotten about. So, it was probably a good thing that he did. I probably would have impaled myself with it otherwise, and that'd be a stupid way to go. "Angel, Killed by Hairpin". The idea of it almost made me laugh, but Judar placed it on the table beside the bed before wrapping his arms around me, completely distracting me.

"You're an idiot," he muttered. "But your mine."

Goddammit, why the hell did have to know he was right.


	5. || Chapter Five ||

It took forever for me to fall asleep. Both because of him being there, and the fact that this room was just f'in weird. And at one point I could of swore there was a mouse. And I hate those things. Nothing scarier than a little ball of fluff containing a billion diseases to go running under the door. How did it even fit? It wasn't like I could see well anyway, it was dark, and the door was on the opposite side that I was facing. Not like I wanted to watch it run away, regardless. No, I was good staring at the wall and watching the stars out the window. At some point during the monotony, I did finally fall asleep.

This time there were no dreams, just silence. Which was nice considering I was used to Matilda showing up to give me objectives to follow through with. Which I would forget were no longer offered to me anymore. She was probably waking someone else up with them, but not me. No, I was a rogue angel, I didn't have those responsibilities now. Which somehow was only slightly better than being a complacent one. Because now I was on my own mission, not one delegated by someone else. Okay, maybe by a golden grail, but who's to argue?

Upon waking up, I found that it was morning, we were still in Hatshepsut's phantasm, and... yep, Judar was still there. Still asleep, though now with his head laying in the crook of my neck. Which just meant I was gonna be sore all day. I tried to move him off of me, but that didn't really work. I sighed and instead decided to just pull myself out from under him, which worked out better. He didn't even twitch, so I set the blanket back over him, got up and went outside of the room.

Hatshepsut's phantasm was a lot brighter in the daytime, less resembling a dungeon from the middle ages, and more like a royal place for a pharaoh or queen. Shirtless servants were running around (I hadn't noticed they were all male at night, due to the low amount of torch light making their features generic and plain), and the times that they carried were not only maps and scrolls, but treasures and food as well.

Food. I hadn't realized, due to living in Heaven for so long, that even Angel's on Earth need food. Or maybe just banished ones do, I couldn't tell for sure. I followed one of the servants and asked them where they kept their food at. He told me without even a glance in my direction, heading off to some task he seemed late getting to. Everyone in this place seemed that way. All being linked to Hat though, I wouldn't doubt it.

The kitchen area was smaller than I expected. The walls and floor were dirt, and baskets sat together in droves. Boxes sat stacked up one by one beside them, and kegs of what was probably beer, sat within what looked like a pantry. There was no supplies for cooking here, other than a small fire pit with nothing but ashes remaining from the night before.

I looked through the boxes and baskets, taking out anything I thought would be good, or seemed ripe. A pomegranate, an orange, a few peaches, and a small bunch of cherries is all that I collected. After putting the kitchen back how I found it, minus what I took from it, I went back to my room since there was no way I was going to carry it around the whole time, plus Hat would have probably threw me off the top balcony for 'stealing' from her.

When I open the door, somehow Judar is still where I left him. So, either he's dead to the world, or just plain dead.

I wouldn't put it past him to use this to mess with me, so I just poke at him instead, for a bit. He doesn't move, but I can tell he's still alive.

"Hey drama queen, I found food." I tell him, setting most of it on the table. I throw one of the peaches at him, just for the hell of it.

Surprisingly, he caught it. "So that's where you'd went." he said, sitting up and realizing what exactly I'd threw at him. "Thanks."

"Welcome." I stay by the window and open the pomegranate. Outside, I can tell that the palace is floating and protected by a shield. There’re forest fires burning down below, the smoke wafting upwards into the sky.

When I turn back towards where Judar had been, he's no longer there. Instead, somehow, he's been over where I am, stole my pomegranate and given me the other peach while also looking out the window. I was going to ask him how the hell he'd gotten over there so quietly but, of course he can float. But the main reason I didn't ask wasn't even because of that. He seemed a lot taller than I thought he should be, which for a minute I'd attributed to just being distracted by everything else going on around us to pay attention to that.

I'm about to ask him about that when I can see him smile in the window pane, and then shrink down a couple feet. Such a jerk. He could tell what I was thinking, I knew, so to get back at him, even though not visible, I smack him into the wall with one my wings.

"Ow."

There's now a hole in the wall and Hat's glaring at me.

"Hi." I wave slightly.

"Do I need to separate you two?" She asks, her voice is slow and cold, traveling all the way across the room with ease. I notice she's trying to wave Senenmut away from her, deeper into the closet.

"Oh, hell no," I mutter under my breath, then telling Hat that we're fine, pulling Judar back through the wall.

Hat immediately puts it back up again.

"Why did you have to do that," Judar asks. "We could have interrupted them for longer."

I shake my head. "Doubt that would happen."

Judar's eyes go dark as he thinks about it, he then nods in agreement. "I'm supposing you don't understand all that either?"

"Either?" I haven't heard anyone say that before. Even other supernatural beings usually care for such things, other than most angels. We're generally content being confused about everyone else's pre-occupations with other people's body parts.

"Yeah, Magi don't have a need for that. Plus there's no purpose to it for us."

"And there's only four of you anyway." I remind him.

"Mhm," Judar takes the peach from me, which I've only ate half of, and sits cross-legged on the bed. "Plus, we just reincarnate anyway."

"Same. Though usually angels who come to Earth get host bodies to inhabit. Either by taking over a dead body, co-existing with the current occupant, or just stealing their body from them."

Castiel currently resides in the dead host body of a man named Jim Novak. Mine on the other hand, seems to be different than them. And I don't really know why. It's as if anytime my angel soul slips, I just go right back to being me. It doesn't matter what happens to the body, it's always the same.

Judar has now finished the rest of the peach and just watching me.

"What?" I ask him, unsure if I even should have asked.

He simply shrugs and lays down on the bed. "I'mma take a nap"

And with that he's passed out asleep. Which I'm sure a nap meant for me to wake him up at some point, but I don't.

Mostly I alternate between watching him, trying to ignore whatever the hell is going on the next room that sounds like dinosaurs have a boxing match, and thinking of something that my brother told me about once, how he'd formed a contract with the King of Hell, Crowley. You see, demons, especially low totem ones like cross road demons which usually make deals with humans, do so in exchange for something. Usually for demons, being the greedy little bastards that they are, want souls either upon making the contract, or the ability to use the contractor's body to fulfil some wish or need. And the contract isn't broken or voided until that wish is complete. Though if the person or being who wants to negate the contract, they are the only ones that can, under any circumstances. That is, unless a blood contract is made which doesn't allow either party to negate the rules of the contract unless someone like God goes and says 'nopesies'. But when is he ever around to say that? The best thing we could ever get is Lucifer saying that as he dances around in a tux before slipping into a congo line wearing a sombrero. Which he does do at parties, sadly. He's the crazy brother, and we all might hate him but he's still lovable all the same. I'm not a ton better myself, honestly.

Judar has been asleep for a few hours now, cuddled with a pillow. It's weird with him being asleep, he doesn't seem bad at all. Thus, I go over to him and am going to see if I can wake him up when the dinosaurs go rampaging again.

I'm about to complain about them again but get stopped by Judar kissing me. Apparently either my observation skills suck or he's just good at pissing people off. Of course, I'd vouch for the latter. Though I suppose this is revenge for the whole wall incident earlier. But right then, I didn't care about that. A contract was a contract, and I needed one that he couldn't weasel his way back out of, even if there wasn't a high chance of him doing that- I needed to be sure.

Thankfully the dinosaurs were of help, since when pulling away, we both accidentally bit each other when the other room just completely exploded.

We both said, "The fucking hell," mainly due to the explosion, and also because the wall just rebuilt itself as soon as it'd happened, like nothing had occurred at all. And then I heard Hat tell me through telepathy, a trait all Servants have with their Masters. Sorry, I don't care for that man.

So that's what was going on the whole time.

_Well no one likes you either, hag._

It was Judar speaking now, which I found funny for some reason.

**_Do you want to come up here and say that to me for real, errand boy?_ **

Judar is watching me now, then whispers to me, asking me if he's supposed to be hearing what he's hearing, never having had any voices in his head other than his own or on very rare occasions in the past, Al-Thamen's.

"Yeah, now." I say, smiling. "Contract."

Judar is about to say something, when Hat chimes in again.

_Yes, because for some god-awful reason, she wants to make use of you. So now you're the new pet until she gets bored of you. Congrats._

Her voice then changes to be directed towards me, tone and all. If you want to win this war, I suggest you do well with him. Because that is all you have from now on. We had wanted riches, and now you've different from your ways. I cannot have a Master like that. I just simply cannot.

With that, her voice faded and the command seals that had been on my hand, a dark blue, with now also black ones interlinking it, disappeared leaving only the black ones behind.

I never even liked Hatshepsut, personality or otherwise, but still I felt drained anyway. It never matters to a Master if the Servant leaves through free will or is killed, it still hurts the same. It doesn't take me too long to recover though, since Judar acts as the new one, making the energy shift seem like nothing even happened.

I then have to go through explaining how our contract even works, which I don't think Judar was even paying attention about anyway considering he kept asking if I wanted to kiss him again. Which I did but, you all aren't going to tell him that. Basically, what I explained to Judar, was that he would serve as my new Servant. Which of course he didn't like the title of, but if it meant staying around me more he'd put up with it. There was also the explaining of what a pseudo-servant was, himself but with the added abilities and attributes of a servant. Which for him was actually himself, since Magi just resurrect upon death, so the only thing it really did for him was made his powers stronger and added in a noble phantasm greater than that of any Djin he could borrow from me.

After I was done explaining everything, Judar and I decided it'd probably be a good time to get off this floating death trap in the sky. Thus, we went and stole all the fruit baskets that Hat had stored away, and I placed them within a small book that I carry around with me that can hold objects in a suspended dimension of time. I learned this skill being a bored angel and learning that witchcraft and alchemy was a thing. Though creating even cosmic events like black holes was something all Angel's innately new how to do, so things like magic and the like were very simple to us.

We were just about to fly off of the tomb when Hat's servants bust through a large gate.  They were yelling in Egyptian at us, something about being horrific people and heretics to the pharaoh, when Judar grabbed my hands. "They say the nicest things." He then threw me off the tomb, stopping to wave at the servants and tell them they can go... well you get the picture, and jumped off himself.

Honestly, falling was fun. The whole of the tomb was now imploding in the darkness of the night, brightening up the sky and raining down burning cinders. It's very pretty and other than the servants screaming as a large blast of fire magic assaults them, being the final blow to the phantasm that just causes it to begin slowly dissolving into th sky taking the bright lights with it, which means Hat is now removed from this Grail War. Which makes her one last threat we have to face to obtain our objective, whatever that may be.

Just as I'm about to ask Judar where he is, through telepathy, when he appears and pulls me through the sky towards a wooded area. He's also smiling for some reason. Which is weird for him, but I let him drag me along. I am slightly annoyed about him stopping my decent but do want to know what he's so insistent on me seeing.

Judar looks back at me and sighs. Rolling his eyes means he can tell I'm confused. "You'll know soon enough, idiot." he then releases my arm and takes my hand, leading me to what appears to be an orchard.

So, this is what he'd been looking at outside the window all the time. Peach trees. Should have known.

"Really?" I chide him. "You, a great Magi, destroys a whole tomb of a noble phantasm for… peaches?"

Judar gets one out of a tree, giving it to me. "Sure did." He's lying, I know he is, but he's acting so serious about it that I almost believe him.

Sometimes the various things he did amused me. And I was never even sure why, exactly. Or why I trusted him so much when anyone else would have said no and dragged me off to get evaluated. Maybe it was Stockholm syndrome?

"Doubtful. Considering I didn't really kidnap you." Judar said aloud, I forget he can hear my thoughts now. Damn this was going to be more annoying than it had to be.

"So what do you call it then?"

He's back down on the ground now, acting like he's trying to figure out an answer. "I'm not telling you." he then says, turning and walking away.

And that just pissed me off. I can tell in general that he'd been stalling for some reason, with all this conversation, but no one should ever not want to tell me something; it simply makes me want to know more. So, I follow him.

"You do know I don't want to rule anything anyway, right?"

"I know. But at some point, in the future you likely will. And right now, in a warzone we really don't have worry about something like that anyway, it's trivial."

I can't disagree with that, but I wouldn't be like Sinbad, I didn't have a wish for a country. Countries didn't mean a thing to me. Angel's are taught the basics of human geography, all of the wars that have gone on and the lands that have been broken and cut up into invisible quadrants just because humans cannot share their lands with one another. Which honestly isn't no different between demons and angels, we get Heaven, they get Hell, and the human middle ground is just a fighting rink for the most part. I'm the abnormality that sees all of it as a middle ground.

"You'll do good at leading something," Judar tells me. He's stopped now at a small thicket of trees. "Besides, people do want to be around you just as much as they avoid you."

It was a weird paradox. I was loved by people I didn't know and people I did, and yet at the same time they also avoided me as well. It's said in Parthevia, that Parthevians are loved and admired by everyone. In fact, I actually admired Sinbad a lot. Yet the draw to people was iffy. Kind of like Judar. Most people are either drawn to him or repelled, and only ones that catch his interest enough get to stay.

Like me.

Judar is grinning again. I swear he needs to quit doing this, it's getting weird. But then I remember he's been listening to me ramble in my head this whole time. I really need to learn to turn this whole telepathy thing off. But even angel radio is a quiet buzzing in my head, so I'm unsure if I even can. Right now I don't really care, just wanting to figure out why Judar seems pleased with something I'd thought.

"You get confused too easily," He tells me. "But it's cute of you to go thinking about a different guy just go right back to thinking of me."

I put my hand out and stop him at a tree, almost clotheslining him into my arm. "I don't like you."

Judar laughed over that, stepping closer to me to look me in the eyes. Ours are basically the same, since mine only change to blue when  angel powers are in use.

"Sure, I'll believe that." He then snaps his fingers and a light barrier called a borg appears around us. "But you'd be stupid if you thought I didn't."

Just then a glowing arrow of light flew by, embedding itself in another nearby tree.

"I thought that was you, dark magi!" a deep voice can be heard up in the trees. "you've met your fate once, and now it is time to face it again."

"Nice to see you too, Solomon."

 


	6. || Chapter Six ||

There was a strong magical energy behind me, I could feel it about as well as my own. It was like Judar's, just the good Rukh kind. Solomon. For some reason the name struck me as familiar. And as if Aladdin had something to do with it.

He does. Judar pulls me closer to him.

Magi, being chosen beings to the Rukh, usually have a few options for when they're reincarnated. They can either possess their original mind and body, or be like an angel and use the body of another, though for them they must transfer their consciousness and powers over to the host, not just take it over.  For Solomon, he was originally from a different world, had a father named David, and eventually had a son named Aladdin, who was sent away to the world we had been at before coming here. Aladdin reminded me of him because, in all accounts and purposes, he as a proxy for him, being his son and all.

This made the Solomon in this world, in a way, an incarnation of the original Solomon from Alma Torran. Though this time he was made specifically for the Grail War, a combination of information and abilities. Everything here was was a shell of some other being from some other time. All believing themselves to be the truest version.

"Fair lady, why are you with him? You could have had me as Servant instead." Solomon speaks plainly, staying where he'd been when he'd fired the shot, as if an easy get away was all he really cared about. I knew about the old, original Solomon from books, and this one was nowhere near like him. Not at all.

 There was an easy way to be rid of this guy, I knew that. But what happened last time I'd used my Djinn, didn't make it very safe for me.

I explain what I generally want to do, to Judar who immediately told me no.

You're not going to use them, they're harmful.

"Fine, so then what?" I ask him.

Judar shrugs. "Come on." he takes my hand and lowers the borg, walking out into the middle of the field.

Before us is the King of Magic. He has long white hair and body armour on, though it's clear that he's a Caster class servant. He's looking at Judar intently, it's clear even in this version of himself, he doesn't trust him.

Solomon barely thinks about his words before he speaks them, "Why don't you make a contract with me instead?"

Yeah, this king should really think his words through better. Knowing full and well what a contract from my kind was like, Judar tried to kill the poor guy, chasing him through the forest. Ice magic and anything else that was remotely destructive was used and eventually the whole forest was up in flames just like Hat's phantasm. So far, we were winning on the side of chaos.

Being an angel, I found Solomon's offer boring. I understood why he'd said it, since most good Servants, especially ones without a Master, want good ones. And bad Servants, if they have good Masters, usually just end up corrupting their Masters. Or on certain occasions make each other better. Right now I couldn't tell which one was going on.

At some point this fight had to stop, and it did. With Solomon dissolving away into the sky, releasing his spirit. I had considered making it stop, to have the king as an ally, but figured he would not be of much use. I'd look for one better than him, which we later found.

Mordred Pendragon, the Knight of Treachery.

She landed in the field to which Solomon had appeared, later that evening. With her Master, there's a strong energy about them. They're of neutral alliance. Like an older war that occurred once, this one was like that of the Apocrypha Grail War, between two factions. Mordred belonged to neither. And neither did we.

I knew they'd entered the area because despite ruining most of the forest, by Judar's luck, the peach trees were still there and Judar didn't want to leave them. Plus, it wasn't like we had anywhere else better to go.

"Come on, they're just over there."

"So?" Judar was still mad over Solomon's request and was set on not letting me go talk to anyone else just yet.  

"They'd probably be useful," I told him. We were in a large house that Judar had created through magic. In my mind, it was way too big of a house, and any of the Servants or Master’s would have an easy time finding it. He'd insisted on having it though, since we'd be here for a while. He planned for us to just wait out this war. He should know me better.

"We're staying here." He reminds me. As if I didn't hear him the first time.

I sigh. I've already told him countless times that another Servant couldn't make me change sides. That wasn't how the contract worked. He wasn't budging though.

"How about this. Astral form, and if anything happens that you don't like we can leave."

Judar shakes his head. "Nope."

He was being a child.

"What do you want then?" I ask him.

"Food."

I should have known. We hadn't had much in a while.

"Okay, fine." I get up and, through a little wandering, find a small kitchen. Judar followed along, asking me what I'd want food-wise.

Of course, I knew why he was asking, this whole house was made from magoi. The same went for any sort of food that there was.

I could literally ask for anything at all. Yet, I didn't really have an answer. Angels don't need food, since it doesn't do anything, but I still liked it regardless. I really loved seafood too.

Fish seemed like a lovely idea, one that Judar wasn't thrilled about. Though, he wasn't thrilled about anything lately. He settled for just a couple peaches.

"You do know that isn't healthy at all," I tell him. I then leave the room for a while and come back. Cooking is basically alchemy, and the making of it is simple enough. Vegetables seemed needed, since there oddly where none at all.

Judar stared at them as if willing them to go away, then whispered "No."

"What?" I knew what he was referring to, but I was waiting for him to confirm it.

A lid materializes over top of the plate, and it moves all the way to the other side of the table.

I pick it back up and take it back over to him. "Really?" I take the lid off of it.

Judar might as well have been a cat, almost hissing at it.

I realized then that I could use this to get him to let me go outside.

"I'll take it away if you let me go outside," I tell him. Who knew broccoli was his mortal enemy.

You could just tell this was killing him. He hated vegetables. Even the thought of just being around one was uncomfortable. Yet, somehow, his want to keep me inside was better than his disdain. He took one.

Sadly, despite me finding the whole ordeal funny, what came afterwards wasn't very much so.

He fainted, first off.

Secondly, I had to carry him to a room. He's actually a lot heavier than I thought he would be.

Thankfully though, after he was taken care of, I could leave the mansion. I slid the door shut to the room I put him in, and headed to the door.

 

<><><> 

 

Outside, the air was cool and crisp. It was late at night now and the moon was high overhead.

The forest was eerily quiet, with would have seemed ominous to anyone else, but to me it was peaceful. I loved places like graveyards and sacred lands, so this was no different. There wasn't any wildlife here, either tucked away for the night or it was just nonexistent. I didn't know which.

A wolf did howl in the distance once, followed by four more. The sound of it made me happy.

A dark mist began rolling in just then, seemingly out of nowhere. From it, emerged what I would only guess was a spirit. It's body glowed golden, and it nodded at me. It was a wolf, and eying me as if to follow it.

"You wanna take me somewhere?" No other angel can speak to the dead or than me, which I learned a long time ago. Not even Castiel knows about the ability, but he does know that ghosts exist.

The wolf huff's softly and turns, walking further down the path. I follow it as it cuts through thickets of trees and bushes, until it gets to a small lake were it then stops. This lake is U shaped, and within the center of it sits a small grave-site. Masters long dead, from the original Holy War.

"If you wish to win this war," a wind seems to whisper. "Then locate the golden chalice hidden in the Angelica chamber. Make your wish, and let your soul be known."

I was going to ask them what kind of fortune cookies they were reading, but I kept quiet about that. Instead, I nodded and agreed like a good supernatural being.

"But what if I don't want to?" I challenge it. "Maybe I'm just here for the fun of it."

The wind blows a little stronger now. "Perhaps you do, angel of death and life, but let it be known that your wish is not one that can be taken lightly. For you wish not to be a god, nor a demon. You wish to forsake your divine right to live among the unclean, the broken, and the most destructive beings known to this planet."

"I know what I'm signing up for."

"You, child, have made the same choices countless times before. Yet you never learn from them. What makes you think being mortal will solve that?"

"I don't know that it will-"

"Exactly. Your dear brother went through this already. It did not help him any."

"Says you."

If a spirit could sigh, this one would have. "You do not know what you're dealing with, child. Even God has abandoned us and so you-"

"I don't believe in him anyway, so there really isn't any comparison."

"Oh...? So, there isn't any comparison to God running away with his sister and refusing to follow their role in this universe, and you? The angel who left Heaven only to run around with evil Djinn and a corrupt Magi?"

Okay, so she had a point. I was like him, but that wasn't going to change anything.

"I'm staying."

"What is your plan then? Defeat all of the other Master’s and Servants, get the grail and then what? You'll be a mortal and eventually die. And so, will that Magi. And anyone else you befriend or adopt as a family."

Wise-o-lady was right, again. Though it would never be all that bad. An ouroboros is a symbol for the infinite cycle between dying and living. Every religion in the human universe has an ideal concept of that cycle, which was very much true. Just as a Magi or Heroic Spirit can be reincarnated into other beings or back into themselves, so can host angels. The removal of my angel abilities can only remove so much. I would no longer have angel radio, nor be able to do healing the same way that I have been but being able to move my soul means dying and living still won't be an issue. It likely would wipe my general memories, since it would be a new start in a new time and essentially, an entire existence, but the general essence would remain the same.

I explain all of this to the glowing lady, which just makes her laugh. Which to me, sounds more like the hum of a strong breeze.

"I suppose you do have it all figured out, then." She materializes more and takes up my right hand in hers. "I wish there was something more that I could give you, to help you along your journey, but my wolves may be the best thing to have. They're spirits but given real forms they can be of use to you. Use them how you see fit. They are yours and will answer only to you."

From the wolf who stood in front of me emerged four wolf spirits which with a howl, materialized into actual wolf bodies, the original dissolving into nothingness.

There was a small wolf, just a she-pup, with dark brown fur and brown eyes. The one next to here was an adult, also female, had a tawny colored pelt with light green eyes.

On the opposite side there was two males. One was scrawny and withered, wrapped in bandages as if it was, in death, mummified and brought back to life. His eyes were tightly wrapped in gauze, but he wagged his tail at me despite this. Finally, there was the tallest of the wolves, a large pitch-black wolf that nuzzled my hand in greeting.

"Take good care of them and they shall do the same for you." the wisp was beginning to fade now. "Oh, and just so you know, the Knight is almost upon you."

The lady gone, it was just me and the wolves who milled close to me.

"Well, I guess we gotta go find Mordred, eh?" I pet the black wolf's head. I decided I'll name them eventually, but not now. There’re other things to deal with.

Just as I'm about to step away from the graveyard, a bomb goes off nearby, causing the wolves' hackles to bristle.

"Hey, Master. Looks like I found a wanderer." the female voice came from the smoke and flames that the bomb had created, she'd stopped to look behind her whilst still engulfed in them. "What do you want me to do with 'er?"

"Leave her be," a gruff male voice said, a little further back.

I wave slightly. So, this was King Arthur's 'son', Mordred. Golden hair tied in a pony tail flowed from her silver and red metal armour. A large red blade rested on one shoulder. She looked me over with a sneer.

"I suppose you haven't been here long." she says, aloud to no one in particular, then cuts her eyes over to my hand. "Where's your Servant?"

"At home," I tell her, almost able to see a look of disappointment cross her face for a brief second.

Mordred's Master came out of the woods, brushing ashes off of his clothes. He's heavyset and looks like a biker. Shades and all. "You just say you have a house?"

I nod and tell them I'd sensed them around the area. "You two are welcome to stay if you'd like. We won't mind." Well I wouldn't, at least.

The two take a while to come up with an answer, bickering between one another. Finally, Mordred morphs out of her armour into shorts and a jacket.

"Lead the way," she said with a grin.

I obliged and lead them back to the house. The outside is even more impressive than the inside, decorated to look like a tall old temple that'd been there for years. Inside the place was slightly more modern, or at least not old and dusty. Mordred and her Master found it satisfactory.

"This wasn't here the other day," I heard the other Master grumble. I chose not to say anything about it, since having to explain everything would be more work than it was worth. So instead I direct them towards a room and tell them where the kitchen is.

After giving them a small tour, I depart from them and return to a different wing of the house, one that to them would just seem like a wall. Magic traps were nice like that.

Once through it, I reset the ward and kept walking down the hallway until I got to the room where I'd left Judar.

I knew he'd hate the fact that I'd went outside, let alone brought back a small pack of wolves and another Servant and Master. But I felt like they were needed. We weren't playing a long game for nothing. We needed something to work with, and now we had it.

I slid the door to the room open, careful not to make it too loud. I closed it back behind me after the wolves filed in.

Sadly, Judar wasn't asleep still like I thought he'd be.

"I thought I asked you not to leave," he seems mad about it, but hugs me still.

The wolves don't seem very pleased with it but also didn't growl at him either, just pad back over to the door and pile into a heap together by it, leaving the large black wolf to sit at the foot of the bed.

Apparently Judar was allergic to canines, because after he left go of me, he sneezed, making the dark wolf jump.

"Dogs?" Judar asked, finally noticing them.

"They're not dogs, wolves."

"What's the difference." He's about as thrilled about them as they are him.

I ask him how long he'd been awake before we came back, to distract him.

"Hours." was his reply, before sneezing again. "I know where you went. Didn't think you'd come back with pets."

The wolves growl slightly at that, and Judar sneezes for a third time, falling onto the bed.

"I think I have vegetable poisoning." He's being overly dramatic now, but I let him be.

"I.. don't think that's even a thing," I tell him, laughing.

He pulls me onto the bed with him. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

"Nah." He got back up then, pat me on the head, and then disappeared into astral form. "I'll be back"

I had a general idea of where he was going off to, but I didn't try to stop him. Wouldn't have been of any use anyway. So instead, I took out my large spell book and flipped through it. I'd written a lot in it over the centuries. Drew a lot, too. I love drawing. Monsters, humans, random objects, anything. It was one thing of many that I had in common with mortals. The book was almost like a diary, with its countless entries of important events, wars, and other important information. If anyone would have thought better, it was I who was the scribe in Heaven. I didn't care about Angel wars, however, that was someone else's worry. In honesty, I didn't care much about this Holy War I found myself in, just simply the want of an achievement drew me to it. I was no better than the humans, and I think even God knew that. He was too, which is why he ran away. To not interfere any longer in their lives that he could not completely care for. They had to make their own mistakes and learn from them, his help just let to complacency. It was the same for the Angels, every one of them was coddled by him, other than Lucifer, who was banished for defying him. I too did the same, but Lucifer still loved God. I did not. I didn't think of him as an ultimate being, not like the Angels or the humans did.

In my mind, if there was God, there was other beings over him, other places he didn't touch, and I was right. This Holy Grail War, even though supposedly fought for God or some just cause, it was not. It was simply selfish desire and ideals that brought it on. The outcome of these wars, these dimensions or even the ideals, didn't cause any difference except to the world it was located in. Simply remove oneself from that location, the issues from it no longer exist in your sphere of life. That's why wars happened and would keep happening, because imagining they do not is easy if there isn't one to see.

To me, there was a reason to fight, however. I did have my wish to become mortal. I wanted it for many reasons. Mainly to be able to appreciate the world as they did, learn things the way they do, and perhaps change their lives for the better simply by being there. It was simple and silly, and even if it didn't work out, there was plenty of travesty that could occur. Likely because of me getting bored, but it was something I would deal with when that time came. I was indeed selfish, but if the only way to solve anything was to become mortal, I saw no harm in it. I could die at any minute even being an Angel, reincarnated back with my memories wiped, or as a mortal with the same result. Life was a funny thing, one giant circle that's full of choices and possibilities. Too many to ever count, and far too many paths to ever fully traverse. But that's what made it interesting, the journey of it all.

I knew for a fact, that Judar too once had a wish to make the world good, but distrust kept that from ever happening. Just as I would have loved to stay an Angel, keep the world safe and suffer for everyone else. But I was done with that a long time ago, never obtaining anything for my trouble. I didn't hate the other angels for it, no, nor the humans either. I distrusted God for all of it. He made many mistakes, such as Gabriel, Lucifer, and Metatron. The worse one being me. All the others were either purely bad or good. Never both. Never apathetic to fighting or not fighting. I was an experimental angel, one that he decided was fine to just treat as a human, see if that made any difference to the overall scheme of plans. I wasn't like Castiel, who could do bad things for a good cause - to protect his family from an impending war. I didn't really have a cause, no real purpose.

By that time, I had stopped being in that room. It was one bad perk of having dimensional powers. It was easy to get stuck in one's own thoughts. I was instead in one that didn't have logic. It was quiet and dark, with water for ground and sky. It was glassy but rippled with the slightest touch as if it would break free at any second. In the center was a large clock, an ouroboros circling around it. Multiple hands were ticking, all in different directions, at varying speeds, while some were just stuck motionless. Others just stuttered. A book lay open nearby, just like my book. Further in the room was shelves upon shelves of thousands of tombs. I knew what each one's epithet said. What each one pointed to. There's a room just like it for Reapers. Except for them, they're given a person's death records. For mine, it's a constant mess. Death, life, all possibilities that could lead to one or the other. Constantly changing and shifting. My given task was to deal with all of it. That's why I left Heaven. Why I pushed God and even my own brothers away. Why Castiel refused to listen to anything God told him, because being controlled was the worst way to live. We made our own choices and lived our own lives. No one could tell us what we were meant to do anymore.

I wanted to one day be rid of this clock, knowing full well that I never would be. Even if human, it'd keep ticking. Revert itself to some other time if it had to, but forever have me locked in as a chess piece for some stupid game I never wanted to play in the first place. God had a horrible idea of fun. And wasn't even around to watch it unfold. What a pity.

_Hey_

For a minute I was confused. No one else could usually find this room. It was hidden in my head and sometimes I couldn't even find it. It was like a black hole of a storage space, why I could never easily get out. My memories became cloudy there, too, making remembering anything in the outside world, the longer I was there, fade.

_Come one, you can't stay there forever. It's boring as hell anyway._

It is boring here, but I want to stay. I tell the voice that. I can't even tell where it's coming from within the room. It's starting to become annoying. I want it to go away and leave me there.

_You have people to fuck with, and a war to win. What more do you want? Other than a date with me._

I cringed at the word ‘date’, but thankfully that reminded me who I was talking to. And while the previous quiet of my mind was nice, I was now bored with it. There were better ways to occupy my time and I didn't need to think about all of it at once.

I realized that was always my issue all along. I always thought I had to solve all issues that came to me, even ones I had no answers to. Instead of just letting things come and go as they pleased. I let them linger and over-thought them so much that it was always impossible to get over them. I had to learn to live in just the current time, the current second. I'd be that selfish angel that I was and focus on what I want. I was done a long time ago with getting told what to do.

 


	7. || Chapter Seven ||

Coming up with a plan with a Knight, a Magi, and a Master who didn’t care about anything at all was going to be a challenge. There was a total of six Masters/Servants left that we had to find and eliminate. And it was likely they were split between one another. Though with the oddity of the war, they could all be fighting amongst one another with no ties. No one knew for certain.

 

“We usually just attack any we see and move on,” Mordred’s Master, Sisigou said, which Mordred glared at him over. “We almost killed Nursery Rhyme last time but it’s abilities mess with your mind. Astolfo showed up and stopped us.”

It was true that Nursery Rhyme pulled you into its own idea world. It’s much like Tolstoy’s _Alice in Wonderland._ Nothing in that world was supposed to make sense, it was a dreamlike place where anything could happen. Which is why when choosing a Master, Nursery Rhyme always chose a dying child named Alice. Its job was to protect her and let her live within it’s fantasy land, though the day was stuck on a never-ending loop, losing her memories of the past ‘day’ and reliving it repeatedly in ignorant bliss. Only when other people showed up did Nursery Rhyme’s fantasy go dark, twisting what’s viewed to the intruders as an innocent child morphs into Nursery, who, living out the fantasy life for their Master who is usually unable to do so themselves. This monster works to get rid of the intruders.

“Where did you last find them?” I ask Mordred, who’d busied herself with eating instead of coming up with a plan.

“How should I know?”  Mordred was chewing on a chicken bone. “It’s not like Nursery Rhyme is just out and about, y’know.”

That was true. Locating it would just be a game of chance. So, I switched topics.

“Okay, so you seen any other Servants?”

“There was that queen bitch, but I think she already died.”

I nod. _Hat_.

            “Other than that,” Mordred leaned back in her chair. “Nope.”

            Well this wasn’t getting us anywhere fast. If we wanted to find the others and deal with them, we’d have to leave this place. Staying there and waiting for them to find us would take too long, plus it made it like Hatshepsut’s phantasm, an inevitable coffin.

I got up from the table and put on my jacket. “I guess we should go out scouting.”

Mordred and her Master shrugged. They were fine with it but didn’t follow right away. I narrowed my eyes. “What?”

Judar was behind me leaning against the door.

“Not even going to tell me?” he has his wand out, spinning it in small circles.

Mordred cut me off just then, her sword in hand. “Nice to meet ya!”

A borg appeared and pushed her back away. “I’m trying to have a conversation here, hag.” Judar rolled his eyes at her, who gritted her teeth into a grin.

“Oh, come on, Caster, you can fight me just once.”

Judar ignored her and focused back on me. “I have a feeling you’ll do whatever you want anyway, right?”

I nodded as he got closer. “You’re not going to change my mind.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he’d leaned down so that he was almost close enough to kiss me, but he didn’t. Instead he pulled away and disappeared into astral form.

Mordred seemed disappointed that Judar didn’t want to fight her, begrudgingly changing back to her regular attire.

 _I’ll go further ahead and check out some places._ Judar told me, leaving me and those two alone in the mansion.

“You’re Servant is a weird one.” Sisigou grumbled and lit a cigarette.

I shrugged and opened the door, my wolves running up from inside the house. They’d been waiting for us to leave. “Let’s just go.”

 

<><><> 

 

The forests were pretty much the same anywhere we went. Trees, bushes, more trees. The only good thing was, there were paths to follow that crisscrossed in and out of the woods. Occasionally my wolves would dart off to bark at something and then come back. Otherwise the forest was relatively quiet. We traveled for about thirty minutes before Judar returned, slipping his hand into mine while still in astral form.

There was a lot of walking involved, and thankfully Sisigou hid a vehicle somewhere near by that we eventually reached. That made travel a lot faster. I could tell when we found a desolate castle out in the middle of the woods, that Alice was around somewhere. The air itself seemed distorted. It was if it could shift off into some other place at any second. That was Nursery Rhyme’s power.

The car skittered to a halt as the castle seemed to slip open on hinges, revealing a giant almost dollhouse interior. We all exited the car and looked up at it. There was a long walkway that lead up to it, and the various rooms looked like the normal rooms of a house, but the walkway seemed to disappear deeper within, as if the place was much larger than it appeared.

Exiting from the car, we all gawked up at it. It was a weird thing, I’ll give it that much; hanging up above the building in the sky like a giant spider. Nursery Rhyme.

From the looks of it, Astolfo had been giving it a run for its money. Some of its eyes were bleeding sending large droplets of plasma raining from above. Meanwhile one of its arms inches across the ground towards us which Mordred swiped away with a flick of her sword.

“Tch, this is gonna be too damn easy!” Mordred yelled up at the monster, who let out a loud screech; it didn’t like being challenged.

Letting down it’s long trucklike neck, it almost reached her but had to scuttle back when a beam of light struck it from somewhere nearby.

Astolfo appeared, atop his griffin, barreling into the beast a couple of times before backing off to regroup. He’d done well on his own up until this point, but I could tell he was slowly draining of energy. I couldn’t sense a Master linked to him, so he was flying solo, literally and figuratively. His griffin swooped down closer to us when he noticed our presence.

“You all mind helping out?” Even though he’d been battling for who knows how long, he still seemed chipper. He was smiling even.

Sisigou grunted and got out his gun, while Mordred switched back into her armour.

“I ain’t gonna say no to a fight.” She grinned back at him, giving him an thumbs up before making her sword materialize into her hand.

If they were both fine with it for pure personal gain, then I was too.

“What’s your strategy?” I ask Astolfo who pet the side of his griffin’s neck.

“I’ll keep using my noble phantasm. You four just keep it distracted while it’s recharging.”

I nodded, and he took off back into the sky, readying for his next attack. Sisigou and Mordred already raring to go, so all that was left was me and Judar, who has his spear in hand.

I step away from him and flick my hand slightly which causes the wolves to form a tight circle around me as I moved back far enough from where most of the battling would take place. Sitting cross legged, I create a barrier around us and the wolves automatically sit in a half circle in front of me, facing outward like guardians.

Spells in Latin were always a favorite of mine, and I’d learned plenty of them back in Heaven. Dark magic included. I clasp my hands together and begin, starting off with a simple spell that countered that of Nursery Rhyme’s dimensional phantasm. It screeched loudly as its hold on the space was lost. The building rippled and begun to fade away, revealing what was truely there; a large pit with spikes surrounded the area. Nursery Rhyme was simply floating in the air, and a small tower where her Master slept was not too far away.

Now that that was out of the way, I closed my eyes and imagined what I wanted to appear, the dead spirits of this dimension. With one single word, “ascendo”, every spirit appeared simultaneously. They flitted about but didn’t slacken on their intent stare towards me. Waiting for orders.

I knew for certain that Nursery Rhyme’s master was sleeping within that tower, but there wasn’t anything I could do about them. They were already dead. The only thing we could do was eradicate Nursery itself. Without it, Alice was no longer apart of the war.

               “Tenebris magicae, spiritus sepulcrum.” With that, the spirits convulsed until they formed a large dark mass that shifted into almost a coffin like state that split apart only to reform around Nursery Rhyme, smashing into it with an explosion of energy. This would hold Nursery Rhyme in place, since otherwise it would likely escape.                Mordred was phasing in and out, slashing at Nursery with her sword while Judar and Sisigou attacked it from afar. Astolfo finally yelled that his phantasm was completely recharged before barreling with his griffin, headfirst right into the mass of spirts.                I try to control the spirits, to phase them back to being benevolent ones, ones that listen to what I tell them, but it doesn’t work. They converge on Astolfo too, causing his griffin to screech out in pain as the spirits rip into him. Both they and Nursery Rhyme fall to the ground. The spirits just continue to swirl. I try anything I can think of to control them, but nothing works. I’ve lost them.               The barrier around me breaks, and the wolves growl as the spirits gravitate to the highest magic level near them, which just happens to be mine. I should have known using dark magic wouldn’t turn out well for me, but I’d went and used it anyway. Darn me for thinking all those spell books would be fun nighttime reads. Now they were just trying to get me killed.                Thankfully, all Judar had to do is snap his fingers together and they disappear like they were never there to begin with. I think everything is fine, until I go to get up. A stabbing headache has me doubled over.                “Hun, I told you to _stop_ your bullshit.” Goddamn Matilda. _Get the hell out of my head._

“I ain’t going nowhere, miss God’s pet.” Matilda might as well have been standing right in front of me rolling her eyes. “You’re going to break your psyche if you keep this up. You’re not completely Fallen yet but you will be. And there isn’t any coming back from that.”

I was coughing up blood, I knew that. But I shook my head anyway. “What does it matter? I don’t want these powers, I wanted what Cas had.”

Matilda’s eyes softened for half a second before coming hard again. “That’s a pipe dream, darling. Your brother has gone through a lot more than you have. You’re not built to deal with that. You’d lose your mind in a couple of weeks if that. And don’t go saying Lucifer is any different, he’s the definition of being f’d up.”

I didn’t get what made me so different from them. We were all angels. We all grew up the same. Sure, I was isolated and taught about the humans, learned everything I could about them and tried countless times to take over Metatron’s job simply due to thinking I could do better at it than him. I was constantly challenging myself and learned things easily. There was nothing wrong with that.

Castiel was banished from Heaven for helping humans, I knew that for a fact. All other angel’s saw defection of an angel to the side of the humans -who were deemed as a lower race- as the worst form of betrayal. Lucifer was banished for tricking God countless times and causing the humans harm. That was also just a fact I knew very well. I saw the humans as a catalyst for both war and great knowledge. There were many things that could be learned from them, but also many things that just simply had to happen to allow their world to progress. Wars and plagues were just a part of that. Which is why even though devastating, I found those interesting to read about as well. How a small disease could wipe out a whole lot of them just from something simple such as a flea upon a rat. Those diseases only made the rest of the population determined to solve the problem at any costs, and eventually eradicate the possibility of it every happening again.

“Why did he find it so important to make me see both sides?” I coughed again, a pool of blood already at my feet. “I could have been like the others, or like Cas and would have been fine. No, instead I’m trapped.”

Matilda shook her head and clasped her hands together. “No, my dear, you’re simply a seraph unable to escape from your renewal.”

I looked at her blankly, which gave her the que to explain further.

“Life and death are interconnected, in any story humans tell, and in our own existence as well. Except for where the seraph is concerned. Your line is no longer around as it should be, but used to pertain to five seraphim, all high ranked angels who every day, begin their lives anew. They begin bright, holy, and then as day ends, renew their spirit and reemerge with the dawn of a new day. So, in that sense, your case is the same. Except for one flaw that God insisted upon you. An actual soul.”

I wiped the blood that was sticking to my mouth, with the back of my hand. Matilda wasn’t making much sense. “All angels have souls,” I told her matter-of-factly.

She grinned. "If you wish to believe that, do. But just know this, you're not like us." 

She disappeared then, just as I blacked out. 


End file.
